Not Applicable
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a stent.
2. Description of the Related Art
A stent is a medico-technical device which is inserted and guided to restricted portions of body vessels or body orifices and in its expanded state expands and keeps expanded the restricted portion at such a place. To this end, a stent must be extremely flexible in its non-expanded state so that upon introduction into the body vessels it can easily follow the windings of said vessels. Furthermore, the stent in its expanded state must be sufficiently stable to maintain the desired degree of expansion.
Although the generic stent (DE 296 08 037.1) already meets these requirements in a satisfactory manner, a further improvement of the stent characteristics is in principle desirable.
It is therefore the object of the present invention to provide a stent comprising a tubular, flexible body whose wall has a web structure, whose characteristics regarding flexibility in the non-expanded state and dimensional stability in the expanded state are further improved.
The inventive stent is characterized by an improvement of its characteristics which as such are opposed, i.e., high flexibility in the non-expanded state and high dimensional stability in the expanded state.
The stent according to the invention provides a construction whose web structure comprises a plurality of adjoining cells. In different embodiments the web structure may be composed of webs or legs which have different structures and surround cells.
According to the invention at least one spring element is provided per cell. The spring element can for instance be a U- or V-shaped loop in one of the webs or legs of each cell. Hence, it is possible with the invention to form a multicellular stent which comprises a plurality of e.g. diamond-like cells or at least cells that resemble diamonds. The legs or webs which surround the cells or diamonds may here comprise the spring elements which in the non-spread state permit sufficient flexibility across the longitudinal axis.